


Cupid Painted Blind

by wallmakerrelict



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Crack, Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Multi, Unrequited Matt/Allura, slut shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 21:31:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16860643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallmakerrelict/pseuds/wallmakerrelict
Summary: Matt Holt finally has a chance at true love. Her name is Allura, and all he has to do is keep his phone from dying before he gets a chance to ask her out. Unfortunately, his phone charger is in the room where his roommate is getting busy with a one-night stand. It only gets worse when his roommate - Shiro, certified shameless slut - catches a case of feelings for said one-night stand. Now Matt has to save both of their love lives while trying to forget the time that he totally walked in on them naked.





	Cupid Painted Blind

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a very silly conversation between [Sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasersheith), [Coppi](https://wicoppi.tumblr.com/), and [Hami](http://hamlinart.tumblr.com/) inspired by [this tweet](https://twitter.com/mangocreampop/status/1066407404944773122?s=20). 
> 
> You guys fill my life with light and laughter.

6%

The battery life indicator on Matt’s phone was mocking him. Usually it could last most of the day, even with the heavy texting load he put on it. But the moment he really needed it to last, it was falling by the minute. Last time he’d checked it had been at 9%. As he glared at it, it dropped to 5%. 

A new text popped up in the long chain. 

> Allura: Yes, I completely agree! Contemplating our place in the cosmos is one of my favorite pastimes. The Leonid meteor shower is coming up in a couple of weeks, and the weather forecast looks optimistic. If there are clear skies then I’m planning on watching them with a group of friends who all have a similar interest in astronomy. 

Matt clutched the phone with both hands. He’d only told her that he liked stargazing. He hadn’t been expecting her to be a space nerd, with space nerd friends no less. He hadn’t even told her yet that he was an astrophysics major. 

This girl was amazing. Matt had only met her that day in the quad, but there had been instant sparks. She was an international student, stunningly beautiful, effortlessly sophisticated. She hadn’t hesitated to give Matt her phone number when he’d asked for it. They’d been texting all afternoon. Only now, as the evening was dragging on past midnight and his phone was limping along on its last legs, things were starting to get good. 

The battery meter skipped 4 and went straight to 3%. Matt muttered at it, “Oh, come on!” He typed quickly, racing his battery depletion. 

> Matt: I watched them last year with my roommate! Bring extra layers, it’s always colder than you think it’s going to be. Helps to have someone along to cuddle with, too.

There. She couldn’t possibly misinterpret that. He’d been dropping flirty lines in all through their text exchange, but so far hadn’t gotten a clear response. Allura seemed to answer everything with the same bright, breezy cheerfulness. 

> Allura: You should come with us.

Matt punched the air. Hours of perseverance and half his battery life had paid off. He had a date. 

> Allura: Just a moment, let me text the rest of the group and make sure it’s alright if I bring someone along. 

Matt’s phone dropped to 2%. And he knew that this bastard of a phone liked nothing better than to die on 2% without ever giving him the common courtesy of falling to 1% first. 

> Matt: Sure! I gotta go find my phone charger anyway.

Matt clicked his screen off and put his phone down with a gentle pat on its case. Luckily, he didn’t need to find his charger so much as retrieve it; he knew exactly where it was. Unluckily, he’d loaned it to his roommate. 

Now that he wasn’t distracted by waiting for Allura’s next text, he could really notice the noises coming from the next room over. His roommate’s bedroom. They’d started as some easily-ignorable low voices and the occasional squeak of a box spring. At some point while he’d had his head down in his phone, they’d escalated to a rhythmic thumping and some guy moaning like a porn star. Matt wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t noticed it before this moment. If he hadn’t gotten used to blocking out sex noises he wouldn’t have been able to stay Shiro’s roommate for long. 

Shiro had been Matt’s TA in freshman year, and they’d bonded like long-lost brothers. Matt had moved into the second bedroom in Shiro’s apartment the moment he’d gotten free of the dorms. It was the ideal arrangement in every way – Shiro needed the extra income, Matt needed a place to stay that wasn’t knee-deep in beer bottles, and they both enjoyed each other’s company. The only thing approaching a problem was Shiro’s penchant for going out every weekend and each time bringing home a different dude to loudly fuck and then never speak to again. 

Which wasn’t really a problem, except that Matt’s phone charger was in the room where Shiro was loudly fucking. He sneaked out of his own bedroom and into the common area, slinking up to Shiro’s door. They didn’t sound like they were going to stop any time soon. And even if they did, that didn’t mean Matt would be able to get his charger back. Shiro had been known to take a nap and go for a second round later in the night. No, if Matt was going to seal the deal with Allura then he couldn’t wait idly by. He would have to act boldly. 

He turned the handle like he was disarming a bomb, and cracked the door. The sounds from inside got louder, but didn’t stop or change to shouts of outrage. He widened the crack. Same result. The lights were on inside the room, so the extra light from the living room wasn’t a giveaway. Keeping his eyes trained on the floor, Matt inched the door open until he could sidle his shoulders through. 

He dropped to the ground and began army-crawling across the room. His socks, jeans, and sweatshirt-clad elbows made little noise as they slid across the hardwood floor; less noise than was being made by the room’s occupants, anyway. He had to slither a path around the little piles of clothes between the door and the bed. He recognized the tight jeans, white tank top, and leather jacket that was Shiro’s typical Friday night tail-chasing outfit – now crumpled on the floor. 

There was another pair of jeans nearby. Matt squinted as he wriggled past them. There was a switchblade hanging from one of the belt loops. Damn, Shiro was going for the freaky ones now. 

Matt glided like an otter toward the foot of the bed where he knew the outlet was. Shiro always plugged his phone in next to his bed so that his morning alarm would be nearby. As Matt approached, he could even see the end of the charger cable trailing out from under the bed. 

As he neared his prize, he began to realize the terrible downside of his plan. It was awkward enough listening to Shiro fuck from a wall away. Now he was going to have to stick his upper body under the bed where Shiro was fucking. To his horror, he realized that he was already so close that he could feel the vibrations of the bed through the floor. 

Too late to back out now. He closed the last of the distance and yanked his charger out of the wall. Sweet success. Now he just had to make it back across no-man’s land to the safety of the living room, and he’d be home free. 

He was halfway there when he stopped and froze. 

They say you can feel someone’s eyes on you, but you can’t really. Not in Matt’s experience. Not until that very moment. Even with his belly on the hardwood and his face turned toward the cracked door, he suddenly knew without a shadow of a doubt that Shiro was looking at him. 

Defeated, Matt turned toward the bed. Shiro was glaring down at him with a withering mixture of disbelief, indignation, and anger. His body was still moving back and forth. The headboard was still rhythmically thumping against the wall. Whoever was in bed with him hadn’t noticed Matt’s presence. Matt squinted as he tried to keep his eyes trained on Shiro’s face and _only_ Shiro’s face. He didn’t want this mortifying moment to teach him one single thing about the latest one-night stand or what Shiro was doing to him. (Black hair, pale skin, all fours, one hand on the headboard, getting plowed by Shiro from behind, GOD DAMN PERIPHERAL VISION!) 

He tried to mouth an explanation, his eyebrows jumping up and down as he willed Shiro to understand. Shiro just shook his head and jerked his eyes toward the door. He somehow did it without breaking his rhythm at all. In fact, Matt thought he might actually have started fucking the guy _harder_. 

Shiro opened his mouth and, still glaring murderously down at Matt, said in a husky, wavering voice, “ _Fuck_ , baby, that feels so good, your tight little ass takes my cock so nice!” Then he soundlessly mouthed the words **GET OUT** at Matt as he slapped an exposed ass cheek with his prosthetic hand. The other guy yelped, then moaned appreciatively. Matt died a little inside. 

He beat a quick and quiet retreat back into the living room and carefully closed the door behind him. 

His phone was dead when he returned to it. His hands shook a little as he plugged it in, and it seemed to take ages to boot back up. When his lock screen blinked to life, two text notifications were waiting for him. 

> Allura: I can’t get ahold of everyone, but the person who’s organizing it said it was fine.  
>  Allura: Do you still want to come?

Matt scrambled to unlock the phone and reply, “YES!” He sat back and breathed a sigh of relief as Allura began sending him the details of the outing. He and Shiro would be emotionally scarred for life, but it had been worth it. 

Besides, Shiro would forgive him. 

The next morning, Matt hid out in his room until he was sure it was safe. Through the wall between their bedrooms, he listened to Shiro’s alarm go off. He recognized the sound of two bodies picking themselves up and gathering the clothes scattered around the room. He heard Shiro’s bedroom door click open, and two sets of footsteps made their way across the living room and past the kitchen to the entryway. There was silence for a minute or two, or at least whatever was happening was quiet enough that Matt couldn’t hear it. Then there was the unmistakable sound of the front door opening, a brief roar of cars from the street outside, and the door closed again. 

Matt listened carefully. A minute or two went by, then he heard the telltale roar of a motorcycle being revved up that meant Shiro was leaving the parking lot. It was Saturday morning. Shiro would be off to the gym. Maybe by the time he got back the endorphins would make him more forgiving. 

Matt opened his bedroom door. 

Shiro was standing in the hallway, waiting for him. 

“What the _hell_ , Matt?!” he shouted. 

At the same time, Matt screamed, “I DID IT FOR LOVE!” 

By way of apology, Matt made an elaborate breakfast of French toast, pomegranate seeds, and some of the fancy sausages Matt had found at the farmer’s market. Shiro had to forgive him now. They both knew that Matt was the only reason Shiro didn’t subsist on bar snacks, cafeteria food, and whatever was in the vending machine in the astronomy department. While he cooked, Matt explained to Shiro about Allura and how vitally important it had been that he charge his phone the night before. 

“You don’t understand,” Matt pouted as he set a plate in front of Shiro’s scowling face. “You can walk into a club and dudes start fighting each other to go home with you. I can’t do that. Girls just think I’m a dweeb. Allura is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! She’s out of my league and she hasn’t figured out yet how painfully uncool I am. Please. I had to. I HAD TO.” 

Shiro took a bite of French toast, and by the look on his face Matt knew he’d been forgiven. “Next time, just knock,” Shiro sighed. “I know it’s awkward, but what you did was out of line. Keith didn’t sign up to be in a weird voyeuristic threesome with you.” 

Keith. Huh. “You actually caught this one’s name?” Matt couldn’t help but tease. “He must be special.”

“I’m not that much of a slut,” said Shiro as he scraped syrup off his plate with the side of his fork. 

Shiro was a little bit that much of a slut. Not that there was anything wrong with that. If Matt could reliably pull the way Shiro could, he’d be getting laid every weekend, too. But Matt couldn’t help but feel that, if he were having that much sex, he’d eventually run into some kind of genuine connection and want to stick with just one person. That didn’t seem to happen for Shiro. Or maybe Shiro made sure it didn’t happen. 

When Matt had met Shiro, he was dating some guy named Adam. Over Matt’s freshman year, Shiro and Adam had gotten pretty serious. Shiro was even talking about proposing. Matt never found out exactly what happened between them, but at the beginning of his sophomore year Adam was gone and Shiro suddenly needed a roommate. That’s when the rotating cast of boytoys had begun. Matt was pretty sure Shiro was close to exhausting his supply of queer men on campus. 

“He was pretty cute, though.” 

It was said so quietly that Matt almost didn’t hear it. He whipped around and caught Shiro staring off into space with half-lidded eyes. 

“Are you going to see him again?” Matt said carefully, bribing Shiro for an answer with another piece of French toast. 

“Nah,” was all Shiro said. 

_Good_ , Matt thought. If Shiro was going to fall for one of his one-night stands, let it not be the one whose ass Matt had witnessed getting spanked and reamed. Let Keith and this whole incident be lost to the sands of slutty time. 

\-----

Three days later, Matt woke up to the smell of bacon frying. He allowed himself to doze happily, enjoying the pleasant smell and the soft sounds of someone moving around the kitchen, pans clunking and fat crackling. It reminded him of home, of running downstairs with his sister to enjoy breakfast as a family. 

Then he snapped awake. He wasn’t at home with his family. He was in his apartment at school. And the last time Shiro had tried to use the stove he’d nearby burned the place down. 

Matt threw an oversized T-shirt on over his boxers and stumbled through to the kitchen. Nothing smelled like burning yet, but he was ready to throw all the windows open to prevent the smoke alarm from going off. He checked his phone as he ran. 5am. Their neighbors were going to kill them. 

But when Matt rounded the corner, it wasn’t Shiro in the kitchen. It was a man Matt’s age or maybe a little younger, with a black mop of bedhead and gray eyes that were too alert for this early in the morning. He was wearing jeans and nothing else. As he heard Matt come in he turned away from the stove, a spatula still in his hand. 

“Oh, shit. Sorry, I was trying not to wake you up.” 

Matt couldn’t answer. All he could do was wonder what kind of maniac fries bacon without a shirt on. 

“I’m, uh… I’m almost done in here,” the guy said to Matt’s silence. 

Only then did Matt notice the switchblade hanging from his beltloop. The same blade he’d seen up close attached to a crumpled pair of pants when he was crawling around on Shiro’s bedroom floor. “Are you Keith?” he demanded. 

“Yeah.” 

“What are you doing here?”

Keith gestured to the stove. “Making breakfast.” 

“No, I mean…” It was rare for a guest star to make a second appearance in Shiro’s bed. For one to stick around and make breakfast was unheard-of. But Matt wasn’t sure how to phrase the question without telling Keith that the guy he’d just slept with was a big ho. 

Luckily, Keith seemed to get it. “I ran into Shiro in the quad yesterday,” he said. “He invited me back. We weren’t too loud last night, were we?” 

Matt sputtered a couple of times, trying to find an answer to that question that wasn’t either a bald-faced lie or soul-killingly awkward. 

After a few seconds, Keith said, “Good talk,” and dumped his bacon onto two plates to join a couple of slices of toast and a pile of scrambled eggs. Simple food, competently made. Like someone who had learned to feed himself at some point instead of so many underclassmen who subsisted on energy drinks and leftover Chipotle. That spoke to a certain level of responsibility and maturity. But he also carried a knife, and when he turned away from the stove Matt saw that he had a scar on his face like he might have actually been in a knife-fight or two. Who was this guy? 

Keith disappeared back into Shiro’s room. Even though Matt would have liked to go back to sleep, he knew there was no chance of that now that he was up and burdened with the knowledge that there was a scary twink in his apartment. Back in his room, he curled up with his laptop, turned the volume on his headphones up, and played Overwatch to keep from overhearing anything from next door. 

A little over an hour later, a loud knocking on his bedroom door cut through the noise of the game. He opened the door to find Shiro leaning on his doorjamb, in boxers and a T-shirt, hair a mess, looking absolutely stricken. 

“Matt, I need your help,” he said piteously. 

Matt peeked over Shiro’s shoulder to scan the rest of the apartment. It looked empty. “What is it, man? Is Keith still here?” It wouldn’t be the first time Shiro had made Matt help him kick out an overly-clingy lay. 

“No, he just left.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Shiro gulped like he was being walked to the executioner. “I love him,” he whispered. 

Oh boy. “You don’t love him,” Matt sighed. “You’re just confused because he made you food and let you stick your dick in him. Real love comes from getting to know someone, like me and Allura.” He’d been texting back and forth with Allura for days. Just last night he’d sent her a funny meme and she’d replied with a laughing emoji. They were really vibing. 

“But when I ran into him yesterday we started talking, and I got so into it that I didn’t even realize where we were going. I thought I was following him to his next class. We made it three blocks off campus before we realized that he thought he was following me. By then we were nearby the apartment so I just brought him home. I thought that would get him out of my system, but we just ate breakfast and talked for an hour. He’s amazing. I have to see him again.” 

Matt had never seen Shiro like this. “Wow, okay man. That’s cool. Just call him and tell him you had a good time.”

Shiro looked briefly hopeful, but then he slapped a hand to his forehead. “SHIT!” he said. “I didn’t get his phone number!” 

Matt pushed his way past Shiro and into the kitchen. If he was going to have to listen to Shiro have a meltdown, he was at least going to get something to eat while he did it. The bacon smell was still lingering and it was making him hungry. “Don’t worry, we’ll just ask around. How many gay Asian freaks openly carrying knives can there be in…” 

Then he saw it. On the whiteboard attached to the fridge. He stopped talking and just pointed until Shiro noticed it. Written in the corner below their shopping list were ten digits signed with a “K.” 

\-----

Keith came around five more times in the next two weeks. Matt played video games so loud that his ears rang after the headphones came off, and he started sleeping with earplugs. The sex noises had been easy to block out when it was a string of faceless strangers, but now that the mental image from that first night was seared into his brain Matt was having a harder time ignoring the sounds coming from next door at all hours of the day and night. 

By the grace of some god, he managed not to run into Keith again face to face. He holed up in his room when Keith was around, and listened for his motorcycle to peel out of their parking lot before emerging. He’d learned to hear the difference between Shiro’s Harley and Keith’s beat-up old Triumph. 

Keith had just left one afternoon when Shiro knocked on Matt’s door again. 

“What’s the problem this time?” said Matt when he saw Shiro’s worried face. 

“Is this just sex to him?” said Shiro. 

“Huh?”

“Keith. Is this just a physical thing?” Shiro was babbling, and Matt was looking for a graceful escape route. “We talk a lot, but we also have sex a lot. Does he like me? Or is he just humoring me to get to the sex?” 

Matt grabbed him by his shoulders and stared into his eyes. “Shiro. Buddy. Bro. WHY are you asking ME?!” 

“I can’t ask _him_ ,” Shiro protested.

“He’s literally the only person who can give you an answer!” Matt groaned. Then, when Shiro just kept looking at him like a kicked puppy, and sighed and added, “Look, just ask him on a date like a normal human being. Go out with him. Spend time with him fully clothed. And tell him you have a meeting with your thesis advisor the day after that you have to prepare for, so he can’t spend the night. If he’s just in it for the sex, he’ll balk.” 

Shiro grabbed Matt’s head and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re a genius,” he said, and ran off. 

Matt heaved a mighty sigh as he collapsed back into his desk chair. Shiro was going to make him lose his mind. At least he had Allura to commiserate with. He pulled out his phone and texted her. 

> Matt: My roommate is an idiot

He stared at the screen for a few minutes, but there was no reply. She must not have her phone with her. 

An hour and forty-five minutes later, his phone pinged. 

> Allura: lol

\-----

“And now they’re dating,” said Matt, finishing up the story he’d been telling his sister over coffee. They were in the little café right off campus, and they’d gotten there early enough to claim the pair of overstuffed chairs toward the back. It was private enough in that corner that Matt didn’t feel bad sharing all the lurid details. “So, the guy whose ass I saw is hanging around our apartment all the time. And I helped Shiro make it happen. I am the architect of my own misery.”

“That’s rough,” said Pidge as she sipped her hot chocolate. Their parents still didn’t let her drink coffee, probably fearing what would happen if her intelligence and energy were ever exposed to caffeine. And they could still enforce their house rules for two more years. Even though she was taking freshman classes at the university, Pidge was only sixteen. 

“And I can never say anything about it,” Matt went on, “because if he ever finds out I’m pretty sure he’ll murder me in my sleep. What kind of stable person carries a knife around?”

Pidge shrugged and said, “I do.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a little Leatherman tool. “My friend gave it to me. He said if anyone at the college tries to hit on me and doesn’t back off once they know how young I am, I should use this to yank their balls off.” 

“You mean _cut_ them off?” Matt asked, recoiling a little. 

Pidge unfolded the tool, revealing a pair of pliers opposite the blade. “No.” 

“Well, no offense, but your friend sounds like a psychopath.” 

Pidge laughed. “He’s fine once you get to know him. All his roommates are pretty great, too. They have a big house off campus that they share, and I’ve been hanging out with them a lot. We’re all going out of town this weekend to get away from the light pollution and watch the meteors.” 

“Whoa, you too?” said Matt. “I’m going out there with that girl I was telling you about. She and I have been texting for weeks. It going to be our first date.” 

Pidge narrowed her eyes. “Wait, are you talking about Allura?” 

“Y-yeah,” said Matt, his heart sinking. 

“Oh my god, _you’re_ the guy she invited?! Matt!! I’m the one who organized the whole thing!” 

Matt took a second to recover from the revelation that, for his first date with Allura, his little sister would be tagging along. Luckily, indignation quickly took over for despair. “You were going to go stargazing with a pretty girl and you didn’t think to invite me?! I love stargazing! And pretty girls!” 

“I invited you literally two months ago,” said Pidge. She pulled out her phone and scrolled back through their text log. Sure enough, there was a text from Pidge dated September 15 asking if he was free the night of the Leonids. Apparently he’d missed it, because the next text in the chain was from September 22 and it was Matt complaining about an awkward family dinner. 

Okay. This was embarrassing, but it didn’t have to be catastrophic. It could even work in Matt’s favor. “Pidge,” he said. “If you have any familial affection for me whatsoever, you gotta help me. Get me alone with Allura! For love!” 

Pidge just laughed. “Dude, she invited you as a friend. She’s not into you.”

“Yes, she is!” Matt protested, pulling up his text log with Allura and showing it to Pidge. “We’ve been texting for weeks!” 

Pidge only scanned it for a few seconds before looking up at Matt pityingly. “She’s friendzoning you hardcore.” 

“What do you know? You’re just a kid!” said Matt, snatching his phone back. 

He didn’t get a chance to explain to Pidge how wrong she was before the bell on the coffee shop door rang and they both instinctively looked up. It was Shiro. He scanned the store until he spotted them in the back, and waved. Pidge raised her cup in a salute as he approached. 

“I hear you have a boyfriend now,” she wasted no time in saying. 

Shiro glanced at Matt with something like terror in his eyes. “Good to know the details of my private life are safe with my good friend and roommate, here. Thanks, Matt.” 

Matt shrugged. He owed no allegiance to Shiro’s privacy, not after all the sex noises he’d put up with over the years. 

“Anyway, I thought you said you’d be in here, so I just came in to give you this. You left it plugged in the bathroom.” Shiro pulled Matt’s phone charger out of his pocket and handed it over. Matt snatched it. He’d been burning through phone battery more quickly lately, with all the texting he was doing with Allura, and if he didn’t carry his charger his phone would die in the middle of the day. 

“I owe you, Shiro. Let me buy you a coffee?” 

Shiro was already backing toward the door. “Next time. I’m actually on my way to meet up with Keith. See you later!” 

“Keith, Keith, it’s always Keith,” Matt sighed as Shiro left the café. “See what I mean? It’s nauseating.”

Pidge didn’t seem to be listening. She was staring after Shiro, her eyes wide and a dangerous smile playing around her lips.

Matt said, “Oh Jesus, what is it?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Pidge lied as she pulled out her phone and started texting. 

\-----

“I’m happy for you, really,” said Matt as he checked the oven. It was almost done pre-heating, just in time for him to finish searing off the chicken. “And I don’t care who you date as long as you’re happy. I’m just saying he freaks me out.”

Shiro was on the other side of the counter, cutting up vegetables, which was about all Matt trusted him with. One time, Shiro had tried to boil pasta and burned it. He was no longer allowed near anything with a heating filament. “He’s nice, Matt. You haven’t even tried to get to know him.” 

“Do I have to get to know him?” Matt whined. 

“I mean, you could just keep hiding in your room whenever he comes over. But getting to know him is also an option.” 

“He’s just weird,” Matt protested. “Who carries a switchblade if they’re not a 1950s gangster?”

Shiro laughed. “Is that what this is about? Matt, the knife is his mom’s. He carries it to remind him of her.” 

Matt froze, then groaned. “Aw, shit. How much of an asshole am I? Is she dead?”

“Deployed. Air Force.” Shiro smiled as Matt breathed a sigh of relief. “So only a little bit of an asshole.” 

Matt took the cutting board from Shiro and arranged the vegetables around the chicken before putting it all in the oven. Dirty pans started making their way to the sink. “Okay, fine, I’ll give him a chance,” he said. “But only because you like him. Are you guys going out tonight?”

Shiro joined Matt by the sink to start washing dishes. “No, but I’m meeting some of his friends tomorrow. We’re all heading out west to watch the Leonid meteors. You know, like you and I did last year.” 

Matt had been drying a fork. As the gears turned in his head, he found himself drying the same fork over and over again until the terrible realization hit him. He put the fork down and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m going to have something to say to you in a second, but first I have to put my sister on blast.”

> Matt: TRAITOR  
>  Matt: YOU’RE FRIENDS WITH KEITH KOGANE

It took only seconds for Pidge to reply with three crying-face emojis in a row.

> Pidge: nooooooooo  
>  Pidge: I was hoping you wouldn’t figure it out for a little while longer  
>  Pidge: It was going to be so funny when you both turned up tomorrow  
>  Pidge: I love you  
>  Pidge: Don’t hate me  
>  Pidge: Matt???

\-----

The night of the meteor shower was cold and clear, without a cloud in the sky. The streetlights near Matt’s apartment meant that only the biggest and brightest stars were visible. He drove across town to pick up Pidge, then the two of them drove west into the farmlands outside the city until the streetlights disappeared. Soon, the only light came from the car’s headlamps and the occasional farmhouse porch light. The sky opened up and the stars came out. They glittered one on top of the other, with wisps of the Milky Way weaving through them. 

Pidge pointed out the trailhead where they would meet the rest of the group. When they pulled in, a van was already parked there. Allura was there, her hair mingling with the collar of a puffy fur-lined coat, looking like a princess. She leaned against the back of the van and waved as Matt pulled in beside it. 

“Is everyone here?” Pidge asked her as she hopped out of the car. 

Allura’s breath was making little clouds in front of her smiling face. “Almost. Keith is still on his way. Hello, Matt! I’m glad you could make it!”

There were two others still in the van, taking advantage of the residual warmth from the heater. Pidge introduced them as Lance and Hunk. 

Hunk offered Matt some hot tea out of an enormous thermos. Lance gave Matt a dirty look. 

The roar of motorcycle engines in the distance made everyone look up in time to see twin headlamps appear over the horizon. Keith and Shiro’s motorcycles turned off the road and kicked up gravel as they skidded into the parking lot. 

“That’s everybody!” said Allura as Keith and Shiro pulled their helmets off. “Matt, this is…” 

“Oh, we’ve met,” said Matt, taking Keith by the elbow. “Keith, can I borrow you for a sec?” 

Keith followed Matt around to the other side of the van while Pidge introduced Shiro to the rest of the group. “What do you need?” he muttered, putting his hands in his pockets and glancing over his shoulder when Shiro laughed at something Hunk had said. 

“I need to tell you something.” Matt paused, considered, then threw himself to fate’s mercy. “That first night you hooked up with Shiro, I walked in on you two while you were getting it on.” 

He waited for the inevitable outrage and possible stabbing, but Keith just looked nonplussed, so Matt took advantage of the silence to continue. 

“Obviously, to spare us both the embarrassment, I was going to take it to my grave. But it turns out you’re friends with my sister and now you’re dating my roommate, so we’re going to be hanging out a lot, and I can’t keep carrying this burden. I deliberately walked in there and saw you bare-ass naked getting dicked down by my best friend, and I apologize. It was a shitty thing to do. All I have to say in my own defense is…” Here Matt paused to take a deep breath, and his voice wavered as he said, “I did it for love.” 

“Matt, I already knew you saw us that night,” said Keith.

“You what?”

Keith shrugged and shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. “Yeah, I heard someone come in, but Shiro didn’t stop so I figured it wasn’t a big deal.”

Matt opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times in a row, trying and failing to form a sentence.

The others were starting to walk toward the trail. Keith moved to follow Shiro, clapping a hand on Matt’s shoulder as he passed. “Oh, and Matt?”

“Yeah?” said Matt, dazed. 

“Allura’s not into you.” 

Feeling like he was floating outside his body, Matt straggled after the group as they hiked into the darkness. The trail wound next to a creek and through some tall shrubs. As they left even the car lights and houses behind, the stars shined even more brightly. Pidge pointed up and shouted. She’d spotted the first meteor needling its way across the sky. 

The trail opened up into a grassy field. They threw down blankets, Hunk passed around the thermos, and everyone shuffled around to get comfortably situated. 

Allura sat on the edge of one of the blankets, sipping her tea and shivering a little. Matt crept toward her. This was his chance. But before he could offer her one of the extra blankets, Lance dove into the space beside her. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Thank you, Lance!” said Allura brightly. Lance was shivering now, but he shot a murderous look at Matt as he leaned in closer to Allura. 

Defeated, Matt picked a spot a short distance away and draped the blanket over his shoulders. Pidge immediately curled up in his lap, grabbed the corners of Matt’s blanket, and bundled them under her chin. “Cheer up,” she whispered. “You’ve still got me to cuddle with.” 

Matt hugged her with one hand and sipped tea with the other. The air was cold on his ears, but inside the blanket it was warm. Above, another meteor flashed to life and burned out in a split second. Even if it hadn’t turned out to be a date with his true love, this was pretty good. 

As the meteors started coming thicker and faster, they all lay on their backs to get a dizzyingly good view of the sky. Little pinpricks of speeding light decorated the backdrop of stars and planets and the galaxy arm wafting through them. Pidge pointed out each one as it appeared. Hunk oohed and aahed. Allura gasped delightedly. Lance had sneaked an arm around her shoulders, and he had a look of utter bliss on his face. 

Matt propped himself up on one elbow to peek behind him, where Keith and Shiro were. They were lying on their backs, too, but they weren’t looking at the sky. Each of them had their head turned toward the other, as if their eyes were a more magnificent sight than the meteor shower above. Shiro unzipped his jacket and pulled it open; Keith scooted closer to crawl inside. When Shiro wrapped the jacket around them both, he pulled Keith in close enough to kiss him. 

Let them steal a private moment for themselves. Matt looked away, leaned back, and watched the stars.


End file.
